karan Palsania : Ph.D degree in the lockdown

Today, my student Karan Palsania took part in the Ph.D viva and got his Ph.D. Congratultion Karan for being my 17th student to get his/her Ph.D.  Due to the lockdown our University had decided that it is not going to wait till the opening and those students whose reports have come in, can face the interview and get their degrees.This was facilitated by my University when it accepted  the reports in the form of a soft copy.  I marvelled at the technology but was  also a bundle of nerves last night, prior to the interview and could not sllep. I was having nighmares that the current has gone out, the internet has failed at the last moment, my lap top crashed and I could not complete the process. However, by God's grace, every thing went on very smoorhy. There were five scholars sitting in different parts of India and yet we could conduct the interview.I am very happy to share that Karan has carried forward my work on women Bhaktas. When I wrote by book in 2010, I was hoping some student join and does work on a particular region and bring out the local sources. Karan carried his work in  Rajasthan and Gujarat and has looked at a large number of writings in the regional language. Today after the interview, i also got another good news and the Cambridge scholar publishing has sent me the soft copy of my manuscript  on women Bhaktas which it wants to being out in a paper back edition and it is hoping to release it the moment the lockdown is over.  A wonderful day and thanks Karan for doing well and once again a big congratulation Dr. Karan Palsania. 

Admission into the Gender Studies programme.

 Very happy to share that the University of Hyderabad is calling for applications for  Gender Studies M. A. Programme with 20 seats. This is an interdisciplinary programme and is open to students with an undergraduate degree in Arts, Humanities and Sciences. 

 M.A Programme in Gender Studies

The intake in the M.A. Programme is 20. 

A) Minimum qualifications for admission into M.A (Gender Studies) Programme:  With at least 50% marks in the Bachelor’s degree in any stream from Social Sciences or Humanities or Sciences with a minimum of 50%.

B) Entrance Exam Pattern: The entrance examination will be for 100 marks. It will consist of 100 multiple choice questions of one mark each.  The question paper will be on Concepts related to Gender, Women’s Movement, Women & Work, Violence and Health. The following is the pattern of the question paper.

S.No. Subject Marks

I Comprehension 

II Concepts related to Gender 

III Reasoning and Interpretation related to Gender 

IV Gender Awareness 

V Contemporary Gender issues 

          Total Marks 100

 University of Hyderabad - Admissions 2020

Last date for online application: 3rd May 2020

Suresh's birthday celebration at the time of social distancing

 Suresh's birthday celebration at the time of social distancing. My neighbours daughter Samaira could not let go her Nanus birthday with out a celebration. She and her friend, Avanthi, another neighbours daughter made a beautiful card with lot of effort and labour of love and we cut the cake in the evening and had a quiet dinner.

The Time of the Pandemic- a time for reflection and reading

 Amidst all this news of the pandemic and the havoc that it has  caused  around the world, I have found time for reflection and  reading. I could finally start reading the Valmiki Ramayan, which I had always wanted to read but could never do so due to lack of time. Now, I have found the time to read it and get deep into  exploring it more and more through the various writings and websites. 

Today, I got a good news that brightened my evening that Cambridge Scholars Publishing is going to bring out a paper back edition of my book, Divine Sounds from the Heart on women saints ,  published in  2010. There were few Indian publishers who wanted to publish this but CSPis bring ing out the paper back edition.  I hope this will be a cheaper edition and one that is easily available and will reach a large number of scholars and students  of  history, Indian religion  and women's studies.

Plenary Talk

 International Women's Day celebrations continues with a two day National Seminar on, ICT innovations for quality enhancement in Higher education organised by the Raj Bahadur Venkat Ram Reddy College in Hyderabad. This College was established in 1954,by Raja Bahadur and today has about 2500  girls in different courses mostly in the Sciences. It has it's own hostels. The second day I gave a plenary talk and participated in the discussion on Emerging trends in the use of  ICT in Higher Education. Along with me Prof Ajit Kumar Reddy, from the Department of Chemistry at National Institute of Technology, Warangal and Prof. P. V. Sudha, the Head of the Computer Science and Engineering, Osmania University participated. Being the only Social Science person, I spoke about my experiences with developing web pages on Historical themes at IIIT in Hyderabad back in 2004 and how ICT can help in improving the quality of education and be useful both to the teacher and taught.

Lecture, Ladies Club Hyderabad

 Today, I had a lecture in the Wednesday club a ladies club on Women's Status in India and there were about forty to forty five women from Hyderabad, who had retired from various jobs or who were home makers attending this. It was a very interesting experience for all these members, the number going to above one fifty in membership and they meet in some ones house and invite a speaker to discuss an issue. I met many elite women of Hyderabad. Met retired IAS officers who presented me her book and others came from different walks of life. I was told that this club was started by Ladies in ICRISAT and since Suresh worked here for thirty eight years, I had met many of them Mrs. Swindale, Mrs. Virmani .Mrs.Reddy in the early 1980's. Also met Ms.Asha Reddy with whom I had interacted at the Telengana History Congress and she and her husband Santosh Reddy, have donated their family home, the Mungala fort at Kodad near Surya pet for a Cultural Centre of Telangana with a focus on research in History. What I really liked about the programme was that at the end of it, I was felicitated with a bag. When, I opened it at home, I found a packet of Almonds and Cashew nuts in it. I thought to my self, only women can think like this. What a beautiful gesture and one that is so useful. We get hundreds of Momentoes at different places where we go, made of wood and all kind of material. Our drawing rooms are already so crowded and so are our offices that there is no space to keep these and yet we keep collecting these and accepting them for it would not be very polite to refuse these gestures of love by the organisers.  Here was such a reasonable gift for saying  thankyou. Indeed only a women's group can think of a gift like this one which will not be adding to the already crowded space.

The International Women's Day celebrations , 2020

 Maulan Azad National Urdu University is organising a series of lectures on Gender in collaboration with the Internal Complaints Committee(ICC). The International Women's Day celebrations were ushered in by the Department of Women's Education, Centre for Women's Studies and the ICC and my talk. I gave a talk on the International Women's day and issues related to Gender. The ERASMUS Scholar Garcia Peter Sabina who is a faculty in the Department of Gender Studies in Bonn, Germany and is attached to our Centre for a week al

so attended and shared her   experiences if Gender issue in Germany.